A Blog about the life of a crafts person who designs and creates beautiful items, including greetings cards, decorated gift bags and scented candles. If that's not enough to keep me occupied, I also arrange craft fairs in Surrey under the name of A Fair to Remember to showcase the work of the many talented makers there are in my part of the world.

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Monday, 11 February 2013

SURREY SOGGINESS

Hi everyone

Plenty of snow, but not really settling - thank goodness. Fed up with the heavy rain though. Quite a lot of flooding around here and coupled with new gas pipes being laid in our road means lots and lots of mud. However bad it is here, it seems to be 20 times worse in and around New York. They have had some really bad weather recently and I am sure some of those who are currently without electricity suffered badly during the last lot of bad weather. The worry always is that occasionally we get the tail end of the bad weather.

Last week was busy. Spent time tracking tools for my workshops - although they can be used over and over again, the initial outlay is always a bit frightening. I did get a very good deal on Ebay for size A3 self-healing cutting mats - postage free, so even better.

I had an order for a valentine's card from a friend - the brief was red card, a simple heart on the front and if possible a frog prince. I created a red and silver layered base, added a raised heart and popped on a frog prince:

Photographing mirror-card is always tricky as it picks up any reflections. I really do need to work on my photography skills. I have a tent with all the supporting equipment and am embarrassed to say that I rarely use it. One for the 'To Do List'. I am sure the bloggers who take part in Handmade Monday will also have some lovely Valentine's goodies to show, so don't forget to catch up with them.

I met up with my cake-making friend, Linda, on Tuesday and we spent our time sourcing carrier bags and reviewing plans for both our individual businesses and our joint-ventures. We want to produce bags that carry details about both of our businesses, but don't want to spend a bomb whilst ensuring the product is of good quality. The decision to be made is do we buy bags with an appropriate picture on them and have our details printed, do we buy ordinary plain bags and produce our own stickers to place on them or do we buy plain bags and have the stickers produced elsewhere. We found several suppliers of bags, some with pictures, some that carried out printing - it seems the initial printing charge is high because of paying for the plates/design. Back to the drawing board at the moment.

The next few weeks will be spent making cards for a couple of events I am doing in March and April as well as getting together packs for my workshops. I have massive stocks of card, paper, envelopes and embellishments and need to sort them out and not get persuaded (by me) to go out and buy more. So tempting as there are always lots of lovely things in craft shops.

As promised last week (and, erm, the week before) a brief review of the new magazine Homemade with love. Lots of lovely crafting goodies: hearts, cake stand. photography (just for me I would think), in particular I enjoyed the section on up-cycling which included information about 7 projects. A good magazine, and it will be interesting to see how it develops.

I don't have a 'next stage' photography of my pottery plaque to show this week, I forgot - as usual. However, I will photograph it at the beginning of this week's session to show how it has changed (quite a lot) and also at the end of the session as I hope to finish it this week. Next week is half-term and we only have 4 weeks after that until the end of term. I want to try to make some more jewellery and am planning on adding the coloured glass to some of what I make

I went to a get-together on Friday evening with the Pottery Gals at which a magician was performing Very good card and money tricks - had hoped he could change some of mine into higher value notes, sadly he couldn't. On Saturday I went to a Fund-Raising Quiz Night with the Woking Cats Protection people. Great fun and the team I was in came second - we were only beaten by a whisker!

The lovely Badger-Boo has awarded me the Super Sweet Blogging Award - how good is that? Thank you Badger-Boo, my favourite Friday Guest Blogger. There are three rules associated with the award: 1. I have to answer five questions (see below); 2. I have to pass on this Award to A Bakers Dozen of Sweet Bloggers; 3. Say thank you Badger Boo for the Award.

The five questions are as follows:

1. Cookies or cake? I love both, but it has to be cake.

2. Vanilla or chocolate? Definitely chocolate.

3. What is your favourite sweet treat? Chocolate, chocolate and even more chocolate.

4. When do you crave sweet things the most? When I am trying very hard to avoid them.

5. If you had a sweet nickname, what would it be? Choca-Looney.

I will post my Bakers Dozen of sweet blogs in a separate post on Friday of this week, so don't forget to come back and check it out. It's back to work now as I am running behind - need to catch up with the other Handmade Monday blogs too. Milly will be here on Wednesday with her mid-week post (she is doing very well following her op - stitches out this week).

17 comments:

Wow you are so busy. I too am fed up with all the rain. Can't get into the garden because of all the mud, and when the dogs go out they come back filthy!Love the Valentine's Card - simple but very striking. xxx

Wow Jill you've been so busy. The card looks lovely, I love the frogs expression. I was interested to read about your bags, I know printing can be very expensive. Congrats on your award. I'm guessing you like chocolate. Have a lovely week.Ali x

Your card looks lovely. I know what you mean with the photography - when I sold mirrors I had a dreadful time photographing them! Flat on their backs reflecting a blue sky with fluffy white clouds worked well, although that does cut down your window of opportunity quite a bit!

Ohhh I can sympathise with the search for bags and which is the better solution - I keep giving up on making a decision for the same reasons! Good luck this week & hopefully no more rain or snow! Simmi x

I have to say i hadn't thought about how costly it must be to buy enough equipment to do workshops... i'm glad you're finding some good deals and i hope the workshops are super successful to make up for it! I'm sure they will be :)

Gorgeous card, i imagine as a card maker this must be one of your busiest times of year! x